Battle for the Punchbowl: The U. S. 1st Marine Division 1951 Fall Offensive of the Korean War

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Fleet, commander of Eighth Army, and put into X Corps, the same corps it had servedunder from Inchon to the Chosin Reservoir to the withdrawal from Hungnam.5In order to complete this transfer, Van Fleet could not have General Smithcontinue to command 1st Mar Div because of enmity over operations in 1950 betweenSmith and MajGen Edward Almond, X Corps's commander. Ridgway had promisedSmith he would not have to serve under Almond again. And so MajGen Gerald C.Thomas came to command 1st Mar Div in late April while the division was still engagedin withdrawal operations to the No Name Line.6 (See Map # 9)Smith had been no slouch as a commander, but Thomas had attended the Army'sCommand and General Staff College and also got along well with many important Armyofficers. He had been G-3 (operations officer) on MajGen A. A. Vandergrift's staff duringthe battle of Guadalcanal, making him an insider of the Guadalcanal clique prominent inMarine leadership after World War II and no stranger to the "Old Breed," as the 1st MarDiv was called in that war. He proved to be a stalwart commander who followed theMarine combat ideal of leading as close to the sound of the guns as possible. Energetic,he frequently traveled about the division and corps area by helicopter (a necessity in theharsh terrain), and rather than planting himself at his headquarters, spent much of histime visiting the subordinate units of his division.7On the No Name Line, 1st Mar Div again found combat when CCF attacked the 7thMarines guarding a key pass on the road from Hongchon to Chunchon as a forward"patrol base," a concept Marines disdained. "The patrol base idea was a new Army idea.s Allan R. Millett, Drive North, 1-37; Allan R. Millett, Many a Strife, chapter 23; U. S. Pacific Fleet, "ThirdInterim Evaluation Report," chapter 15.6 Ibid.7 Ibid.